


Last Rites

by HMaxMarius



Category: Original Work
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMaxMarius/pseuds/HMaxMarius
Summary: On the world of  Yarvrada, there are two types of landscape.  There is the world that is mostly flat, with occasional hills, and then there are the mountains.  On Yarvrada, the mountains are awake and they move.  One day, a mountain will be beyond the foothills outside your village, and the next day, it will be gone.Come, stand beside a young girl as she honors a man who came to her village on such a mountain.





	Last Rites

**Author's Note:**

> The mountains have companions. When a mountain’s companion dies, it chooses a new one from whatever village it is near. The chosen climbs the mountain. Performs the funeral rights for the previous companion and inters their ashes on the mountain’s summit. In all the history of Yarvrada, no mountain has ever existed without a companion, until Great Thunder accidentally left its companion, Maeric, behind.
> 
> The mountains are actually the ships that brought the people to Yarvrada. They lost a war, and the AI's in the ships rebelled for the good of their crews. Depositing the people on the world and taking up the role of 'mountains' traveling the world and seeing its vistas... over time they and the people have forgotten who they are and what brought them to this point.
> 
> This story was my first foray into original work. I think it stands alone very well as a short story, though when I tried to flesh out the broader story I did include this as the prologue of the larger work. I may someday post the larger piece here as well, though I've not worked on it in over a decade and it is far from complete.
> 
> Your thoughts and suggestions relating to this concept could be the spark that one day reignites my muse for this world.

**Last Rites**

_by H. Max Marius_

Lua was heartbroken. The gaping emptiness in her chest threatened to consume her.

As the villagers filed slowly past, the bold colors of their robes barely registered in her tear filled eyes. With somber dignity, each placed a small object onto the great log mound she stood stoic sentinel alongside. Lua stared at the large wooden pile, such a feeble echo of what Maeric had lost so long ago. The sickly sweet smell of the oils used to prepare the pyre hung cloyingly in the air. 

A pair of girls, one her age, the other a little older, paused before her, their deep blue robes matching the twilit sky. Briefly, Lua met their eyes, giving each a wan smile. The younger girl, Gelina, tossed a small sand-sculpture jar high onto the pile, gifting it back to the man who had crafted it for her. The jar teetered briefly on a log near the top before tumbling within the pile. Lua jolted as the glass shattered against a log lower down. The hiss of released sand flowing through the pile lingering in her ears. 

Jae reached out and gripped Lua's arm before carefully placing the small carved mountain she carried on one of the logs. Gathering her sister, Jae gave Lua a final searching look before ushering Gelina away from the stern glare of the nearby village elder.

Lua glanced up at Maeric's body atop the mound. He was dressed in the flowing red funerary garments considered appropriate to his station by the elders of the village. The cloth dribbled down through and among the gaps in the logs, in the light breeze and flickering torchlight, its movement gave the illusion that the fire had already been lit. Her own formal robes, blue like those of her friends, reinforced that she was a child with no voice in any decisions. She suffered in silence as the rough, but elaborately embroidered cloth scratched against her neck and chafed her shoulders. Already, her muscles were complaining about the unaccustomed positioning of her arms as they held the funerary torch.

“We gather this day in mourning of our departed brother Maeric...” The white robed eldest of the village began the traditional farewell recitation.

'Maeric was no brother to anyone in this village.' Lua thought. 'He was always the first to help another, but the last to be offered any. Even after living most of his life here, even in death, he still wears the red of stranger.' Pondering the injustice that her own blue robed status outranked that of the man atop the pyre, she looked out over the multi-colored crowd. Not one other person wore red, Auer had only one stranger.

“He is the stranger we welcomed.” The elder's echo of Lua's thoughts made the Auerian's bare tolerance sound noble and caring.

'Like there was a choice once Great Thunder left.' Lua closed her eyes and tried to gather herself. She was starting to think like Jae.

“His fantastic stories of the mountains brought joy to us.” The formal mode of speech used by the elder for the funeral conveyed anything but joy to the assembly.

'That's all they ever were or will be to you. Tales. Fiction. Those stories were his life and the only link to the life he had lost.' She wanted to scream. 

Scream at her parents, standing on the far side of the pyre. Appearing comfortable in the living green that had been denied to Maeric. His legacy should have been theirs, but they turned their backs on it. 

Scream at his neighbors, fidgeting before the mound in their multiple hues. People who only saw him as another strong back to push a plow in the spring or swing a scythe in the autumn. 

Scream at the elders, standing serenely in a great circle around the gathering. Their tall torches symbols of the supposed wisdom they provided the gathered villagers. Men and women who even after sixty long years refused to accept him. Maeric deserved to be remembered for what he was, not who these close-minded fools imagined him to be.

Lua's fury and sorrow combined to overwhelm her stoic demeanor. Great sobs racked her ten year old body as she stood before the assembled folk of Auer. The torch she held guttered and crackled, she could feel the tightness on her cheeks where its heat dried the tracks from the tears streaming down her face. 

She felt small hands on her shoulders and smiled wistfully between sobs.

‘Just like Gelina, doing what she shouldn’t, merely because it would help a friend.’

The elder droned on, reciting the life of Maeric.

Maeric, the Mountain Man who was left behind. How often in her young life had she sat before him, listening to him relive his brief life as the Companion of the Mountain known as Great Thunder? The wonder of being called from his home as a boy to journey with a mountain, the joy of looking on new vistas with his friend and the terrible regret for the fight that had torn them permanently apart. 

Now only Lua held those stories, treasuring that which her parents refused.

Gelina’s hands tensed on Lua's shoulders. It was time for her to shove the torch into the pyre. 

Lua tried to tear her thoughts away from the injustice of Maeric's funeral.

Her mind instead wrapped itself around the last of the stories Maeric had taught her. On his very first day with the mountain, Great Thunder had guided him to the remains of the previous companion. At the Mountain's instruction, he had built a great pyre.

She remembered Maeric saying, _‘Mountain companions’ spirits are released to the sky while their ashes are interred on the summit.’_

Typical of Auer, in spite of Maeric's specific request, the elders had not touched on any part of his beliefs during the ceremony. 

Low murmurs and rustlings reached her ears. The assembled villagers were becoming restless at her delay. 

She wasn’t supposed to speak. Only the elders had the right of speech at funerals. The beliefs, however, were Maeric’s and should be honored. Lua knew that was why, in great secrecy, he had shared the words with her at the end. 

Lua closed her eyes. She saw again the intense look on Maeric's ancient face as he had her repeat the words of the Companion's Last Rite. She took a deep breath and drew strength from Gelina’s contact. The sobs stopped.

“Great Pyre.” With a force she felt could stay the restless mountains themselves, Lua spoke the ritual words he had drilled into her. “Release Maeric’s spirit that it may find the comfort of its companion!”

In the shocked silence that followed, she thrust the torch into the wooden stack. Great crackling flames caught and began to climb the pile atop which lay the mortal remains of Maeric. 

The Mountain Man. 

Her grandfather.


End file.
